He generally left me to choose my own subjects, which, as far as I remember, were mostly addresses to some mythological personage or allegorical abstraction; but he made me translate into English verse many of Horace's shorter poems: I also remember his giving me Thomson's _Winter_ to read, and afterwards making me attempt (without book) to write something myself on the same subject.

The verses I wrote were, of course, the merest rubbish, nor did I ever attain any facility of versification, but the practice may have been useful in making it easier for me, at a later period, to acquire readiness of expression.[1] I had read, up to this time, very little English poetry.

Shakspeare my father had put into my hands, chiefly for the sake of the historical plays, from which, however, I went on to the others.

My father never was a great admirer of Shakspeare, the English idolatry of whom he used to attack with some severity.

He cared little for any English poetry except Milton (for whom he had the highest admiration), Goldsmith, Burns, and Gray's _Bard_, which he preferred to his Elegy: perhaps I may add Cowper and Beattie.